regulations Blog Posts

Philosopher George Santayana once said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”. In light of recent actions in the mortgage lending industry, we all may be able to experience the thrill ride of 2007-2009 all over again…soon. You may wonder what actions I am referring to so let me share a brief list of what I will call the top ten contributing factors to the downturn I see happening by July of 2017.

The Network of State Appraiser Organizations has prepared a letter to Melvin L. Watt, Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), addressing the concerns appraisers they represent have with FNMA's Collateral Underwriter (CU) program. The Organizations' stance is that since the data is originated and collected primarily through appraisal reports it should be made available to appraisers in addition to lenders, mortgage companies, and AMCs. We agree.

Today, banks and savings and loans have loan origination offices or mortgage brokers spread all over the U.S. making as many home loans as possible with no intention of holding and servicing the loans they fund. The mortgage loan department funds or buys loans in cities nobody at the bank has ever even visited, let alone actually knows and understands.

Despite the fact that California has some of the highest personal taxes of any state in the nation, it is nonetheless buried in debt. Governor Jerry Brown estimates that California’s current debt load is somewhere in the neighborhood of $132 billion, which has forced the government to make deferred payments to school systems, Medi-Cal patients and public employees' retirement funds. In light of these circumstances, one option the state might want to consider would be the so-called “mansion tax.”

On May 23, 2014, the Court of Appeal for the Fourth Appellate District, Division One, State of California, issued a very interesting decision on whether a plaintiff can successfully plead and argue fraud based on comments made about the concluded value of real estate that was appraised. The case is Graham V. Bank of America, N.A., et al. Although this ruling is unquestionably useful for an appraiser being accused of appraisal fraud, it probably is not the magic elixir many will proclaim it to be.

If being a real estate broker or salesperson acting in a dual agent capacity was not already risky enough, the California Court of Appeal just made it even more dicey. Real estate brokers and associate licensees know that the risk is great in acting in a dual agent capacity, but the reward most of the time outweighs the risk.

The lure of the full commission on a real estate transaction always entices the real estate professional to take the leap of faith that he/she can act in compliance with California Civil Code Section 2079 et. seq. and adequately navigate the intrinsic conflict of interest that...

In This Episode - Earlier this year, Fannie Mae announced the launch of its Appraiser Quality Monitoring system, or AQM. Essentially, the AQM is a government-derived type of system that monitors the quality and consistency of your appraisal reports. With this system in place, the agencies will be able to determine whether your work requires consistent, ongoing review or if you will end up on government-level “do not use” list.

If you are a real estate professional, please read this, especially if you fear your own business is being damaged by all of the new regulations designed to “help” the real estate industry recover.

Imagine you, a hardworking, law abiding taxpayer, are sitting at home one evening watching television when there is a knock at your door. Somewhat surprised by the late hour of the visit, you get up and open the door and three IRS agents barge into your home and declare, “We are from the IRS and we are here to help.” I think it’s safe to say you would be both...

First, it is gratifying to know you are actually reading what we write and release. We know this is true because a little over a year ago, we received very few questions about subpoenas and today, after writing a little warning piece on the now infamous FDIC subpoenas being issued to appraisers by a private law firm, we get lots of questions. In fact, we get so many we decided to put together a short follow-up piece on different kinds of subpoenas and how to handle them. These are presented in ascending order of concern with the final one being the most dangerous....